Our friends Casey and Michele invited us over to their house for dinner last night.  It was a glorious summer evening in Chicago – street fest right outside the front door with live music, warm weather and clear skies, amazing food and great friends. Michele made grilled corn-on-the-cob, garlic bread, peel-n-eat shrimp, grilled artichokes and salad.  A perfect summer menu.

I offered to bring dessert, so I put together a fast yet tasty tart using organic strawberries and whole milk I picked up from Green Grocer Chicago.  This recipe is lots of fun to tweak – sometimes I use blueberries and lemon, sometimes I add in chopped chocolate.  Sliced peaches or nectarines would probably be delicious, too.  Its a great way to take advantage of fresh summer fruits.

Strawberries and Cream Shortbread Tart

Crust:

13 tablespoons cold butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

Filling:

1 lb strawberries, tops removed and halved

3 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

4 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons vanilla extract (I use my homemade vanilla extract)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Blend the crust ingredients together in a large bowl using your fingers.  The flour needs to be “worked” into the butter until coarse crumbs form.  Press into a 9″ springform pan and bake for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven.

While crust is cooking, prepare filling.  Beat eggs and sugar together until it mixture is lofty and pale yellow.  Add flour, milk and vanilla extract and beat well.

Scatter strawberries over the top of the crust.  Pour filling over strawberries.  Put in oven and reduce temperature to 325 degrees.  Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the filling is just set.

Cool completely before slicing.